Voice Recognition & Cortana

How to activate Cortana – Windows 10 voice assistant

What or who is Cortana? Cortana is Microsoft’s equivalent of a voice activated personal assistant. Remember how we said that at some point, the forms of input we use today will simply go away? It will happen sooner than we know it. Input methods like keyboards and mice are becoming obsolete. They can’t function as fast as we can think. As people who are in technology, using it everyday, the goal is to eventually have computers respond and think as fast as humans can think.

To that end, Cortana is Microsoft’s version of a voice activated personal assistant. You can tell Cortana to make you cereal. Just kidding, we’re not there yet. Cortana can tell us weather forecasts, can set a reminder, tell jokes, and we can use Cortana to send emails too. Cortana can help with tasks like searching for a file locally, searching the Internet, etc.

To turn Cortana on, there are a few steps in Windows 10. Once those steps are followed and Cortana is enabled, you’ll be able to summon Cortana by just saying “Hey Cortana,” followed by a voice command. Here’s the steps on how to activate Cortana:

Open the start menu. Then, on left, third icon by the top when search window comes up, click the notebook icon on left side of the window
click settings on the left side

Turn on hey Cortana switch

“Hey cortana”, continue with command immediately after activation prompt instead of waiting for cortana to load and indicate she is listening